New in Theaters
(Playing at the Durango Stadium 9)
The Monuments Men
George Clooney, movie director, started out with so much promise.
He began with two stories about television’s power, both to distort reality (“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” about “Gong Show” host Chuck Barris) and to reveal it (“Good Night, and Good Luck,” about Edward R. Murrow). Neither was perfect, but the films showed tremendous potential, particularly the latter, with its thick clouds of paranoia and cigarette smoke.
But Clooney has gone somewhat astray, with the football comedy “Leatherheads,” the political thriller “The Ides of March” and now “The Monuments Men.” They’re not bad pictures, but nostalgia – made urgent in “Good Night” – suffocates the World War II caper “The Monuments Men” like it did the screwball ode “Leatherheads.”
Clooney’s taste is very good, and in adapting Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter’s book by the same title about the Allied forces’ pursuit of art masterpieces stolen by Nazis, he has chosen a fascinating historical tale that also bears the intriguing question: What’s the price we’re willing to pay for art?
But while a Michelangelo may be worth dying for, “The Monuments Men” is, at best, adequately priced as a movie ticket. Clooney, working from a script he penned with his frequent collaborator Grant Heslov, has fashioned his film as a traditional WWII flick, with a “Great Escape”-like score by Alexandre Desplat and a sentimental kind of soldierly chumminess.
Only this band of brothers is more like an assembly of academics. A handful of museum curators and art experts have been gathered by art historian Frank Stokes (Clooney) to investigate and retake the troves of artwork the Nazis have stolen for a mammoth German museum planned by Hitler.
The platoon is ill-suited for war but bold in spirit: an art restorer (Matt Damon), an architect (Bill Murray), a sculptor (John Goodman), a British museum head (Hugh Bonneville), a theater producer (Bob Balaban) and a French painting instructor (Jean Dujardin). Some of the pairings are fitting: Clooney and Damon planning another heist (“Ocean’s Thirteen”); Dujardin and Goodman back on speaking terms (“The Artist”).
In truth, more than 300 Allied servicemen and women worked in the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program in the final years of the war. They helped lead to the recovery of about 6 million objects (estimates vary). Most of the names in the film have been changed, and the mission has been made significantly more romantic.
Cate Blanchett plays a reluctant-to-cooperate assistant curator from Paris’ Jeu de Paume museum. A book by real-life Rose Valland inspired John Frankenheimer’s 1964 film, “The Train,” with Burt Lancaster. It portrayed the French Resistance effort to derail a train of stolen art taken from the Jeu de Paume. With the cunning of sabotage and the soot of the train yard, “The Train” makes a more superior and grittier film.
“The Monuments Men” is instead weighed down by dutifulness. It feels like it’s only a third act, lacking any buildup of tension or character development. When Stokes solemnly argues early in the film about risking life for the recovery of what he calls “the foundation of modern society,” the movie has presented its thesis statement, and settled any debate. Though deadly encounters follow, the nobility of the quest is unchallenged.
With this film, Clooney (who enjoys a self-satisfying scene telling off a Nazi) has erected a stiff monument, a worthy if undramatic tribute to those it’s based on.
One wishes the movie had arrived 11 years earlier. Maybe it would have raised enough awareness to take precautions ahead of the toppling of Saddam Hussein, when Baghdad’s Iraq museum was looted of thousands of antiquities.
“The Monuments Men,” a Columbia Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for some images of war violence and historical smoking. Running time: 118 minutes. HH½ out of four.
JAKE COYLE, AP Film Writer
Vampire Academy
(Not reviewed.) Rose Hathaway develops a mental and spiritual bond with her BVFF (best vampire friend forever) Princess Lissa. The two girls attend a strict school for vampires designed to retain their humanity where it is Rose’s task to protect the Princess. Among the everyday issues faced by teenage vampires, Rose falls for Dimitri, their dreamy guardian, and together the three battle the mysterious forces of the evil Moroi who are set on destroying the Princess’s bloodline. Rated PG-13.
The LEGO Movie (In standard format and digital 3-D with surcharge)
(Not reviewed.) An ordinary LEGO minifigure, mistakenly thought to be the extraordinary MasterBuilder, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil LEGO tyrant from gluing the universe together. Voices include Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett and Morgan Freeman. Rated PG.
Still Showing
Animas City Theatre
(128 E. College Drive, 799-2281, www.animascitytheatre.com)
Inside Llewyn Davis. Idealistic young folk singer Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) struggles to make a name for himself in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s in this fictional period drama from Joel and Ethan Coen.
Gaslight Cinema
(102 Fifth St. Next to the railroad depot, 247-8133, www.allentheatresinc.com)
Dallas Buyers Club. Dallas Buyer’s Club. In the fact-based drama, Matthew McConaughey portrays real-life Texas electrician Ron Woodroof, an ordinary man who found himself in a life-or-death battle with the medical establishment and pharmaceutical companies. Rated R.
Oscar nominated: Six categories including Best Picture, Best Actor (McConaughey) and Actor in a Supporting Role (Jared Leto).
August: Osage County. This is a dark and deeply touching story of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose lives have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Midwest house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional woman (Meryl Streep) who raised them. Rated R.
Oscar nominated: Best Actress and Actress in a Supporting Role.
Her. Set in Los Angeles, slightly in the future, The odd story of Theodore Twombly, a complex, soulful man in the near future Los Angeles who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet “Samantha,” a bright, female voice, who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. Sounds weird, yes? Rated R.
Oscar nominated: Five categories including Best Picture.
Durango Stadium 9
(Next to Durango Mall, 247-9799, www.allentheatresinc.com)
2014 Oscar Nominated Short Films - Documentary. (Wednesday only.)
Documentary Program A - Estimated Total Running Time with Titles and Interstitials: 97 min.
The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life (Malcolm Clarke and Nicholas Reed, Canada/USA/UK - English, 39 min.) At 109, Alice Herz Sommer is the world’s oldest pianist…and its oldest Holocaust survivor. At the heart of her remarkable story of courage and endurance is her passion for music.
Karama Has No Walls (Sara Ishaq, UAE/UK/Yemen – Arabic, 26 min.) When protesters in Yemen added their voices to those of other nations during the Arab Spring, the government responded with an attack that left 53 people dead and inspired widespread sympathy throughout the country.
Facing Fear (Jason Cohen, USA/English, 26 min.) As a gay 13-year-old, Matthew Boger endured a savage beating at the hands of a group of neo-Nazis. Twenty-five years later, he meets one of them again by chance.
Documentary Program B - Estimated Total Running Time with Titles and Interstitials: 87 min.
CaveDigger (Jeffrey Karoff, USA/English, 39 min.) New Mexico environmental sculptor Ra Paulette carves elaborately designed and painstakingly executed sandstone caves, driven by an artistic vision that often brings him into conflict with his patrons.
Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall (Edgar Barens, USA/English, 40 min.) In a maximum security prison, the terminally ill Jack Hall faces his final days with the assistance of hospice care provided by workers drawn from the prison population
Labor Day. Kate Winslet plays a depressed single mom who falls for Josh Brolin as a fugitive on the run. Rated PG-13.
That Awkward Moment. A chick flick with a male protagonist: Zac Efron, Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan star in a comedy about three best friends who find themselves at that confusing “moment” in every dating relationship when you have to decide “So…where is this going?” Rated R.
Frozen. Inspired by the 19th-century fairy tale, “The Snow Queen,” by Hans Christian Andersen, “Frozen” marks another Disney film modernizing one of the Danish author’s stories. Also showing, a new version will feature on-screen lyrics with a magical bouncing snowflake to follow along. Rated PG.
Oscar nominated: Best Animated Feature Film.
Ride Along. Ben wants to become a cop so he can impress James and win his blessing to marry Angela. James thinks Ben is a clown, so he comes up with a plan to scare Ben away from becoming a cop and from marrying Angela: He’ll take Ben on a “ride along.” PG-13.
The Nut Job. A comedy in fictional Oakton that follows the travails of Surly, a mischievous squirrel, and his rat friend, Buddy, who plan a nut store heist of outrageous proportions and unwittingly find themselves embroiled in a much more complicated and hilarious adventure. Rated PG.
Lone Survivor. The more-or-less true story of Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, who was the lone survivor of a mission in Afghanistan that went tragically wrong. Rated R.
Oscar nominated: Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.
Ted Holteen and Associated Press
